She shouldn’t be given a leadership position as a “consolation prize”. She shouldn’t be bailed out by Obama or the party. It has gotten to the point where Hillary and her supporters have showed their true colors, and the resulting picture is a nasty one.

Hillary Clinton’s threatening civil war within the party if she isn’t offered something. In return for what? There’s certainly value in ensuring Hillary’s supporters are listened to, especially in such a close race. But the candidate herself is doing everything to make this a painful and damaging process for everyone. That should not be rewarded, it should be condemned.

Arguments to make the vote “count” in Florida and Michigan are beyond cynical. As Greg Saunders points out, her position utterly disregards the will of the voters, the integrity of the process, and the impact of her divisive actions (emphasis mine):

It’s stunning to me that Hillary Clinton supporters would have the audacity to claim that the popular vote is a metric that we should be using to determine who should get the Democratic nomination while at the same time insisting that Obama shouldn’t receive a single vote for Michigan. I’m ambivalent about whether or how the MI and FL delegates should be seated, but if you’re going to hold yourself up as a champion of voting rights and insist that the popular vote is a more legitimate way to gauge voter intent, then it’s pretty craven to chase a strategy whose only purpose is to cut into Obama’s lead with the implicit conclusion that not a single person in Michigan supports Barack OBama.

But, you might argue, Obama chose to take his name off the ballot and therefore his lack of support is just the result of his own choices. Well, if we’re going to follow the rules to the letter and punish candidates for their choices, then it bears repeating that the rules state that Michigan and Florida don’t count and that the Clinton campaign made the choice to agree to the DNC sanctions against these states. If you’re only going to recognize the rules that help Hillary Clinton win, just drop the self-righteous bullshit about your sterling commitment to democracy and be honest enough to admit that you’re only interested in Florida and Michigan because you think Clinton is a better candidate.

Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and all of the other Democratic candidates competed under the same rules and Clinton lost. Now she’s trying to work the refs and is trying to change any rules that might keep her from winning. That’s understandable, but when you wrap your attempts to move the goalposts in a veneer of moral superiority and question the values of your opponents (specifically, questioning whether or not Obama supporters believe in voting rights), don’t be surprised if you piss a lot of people off.

I’m willing to give Mrs. Clinton the benefit of the doubt on her RFK gaffe. But she’s literally tearing the party apart when we desperately need to pull together to undo years of structural damage to the foundations of our government and way of life. And all to satisfy this intense sense of entitlement that smells more like Lieberman’s independent run than the underlying commitment to our nation’s deepest issues she showed during the NH primary. Its a huge waste of talent. This primary should not have been a “last shot” to the NY Senator. But with the way she’s bungled things and the misplaced priorities she’s shown, it looks like it is. The more she gnashes her teeth and lashes out at Democrats, the more I am ok with that.

2 Responses

The RFK thing was pretty crass. I think it shows that she is really loosing it. Her supporters should abandon the conceit that she is the “Chosen One” and start working to defeat McCain in November, otherwise it will be another 4 years of war and God knows how many more lives.

That civil war in the democratic party article is disturbing. What is she…3? Make me VP or I’ll hold my breath until the Democratic party infighting turns voters away? I read in some other comments section a discussion on her fatigue…god, what if it were 3 AM…how much worse would it be then?